源源不断
yuán yuán bù duàn · HSK 7
stream
🌊💧 源源 = source after source, 不断 = never breaks: spring after spring, never stopping
源 means a water source or spring; doubling it (源源) stresses one source after another. 不断 is not + break, i.e. uninterrupted. Together: water welling up source after source without ever cutting off — a steady, endless stream.
不 — single pictograph; bird flying upward
Originally a pictograph in oracle bone script, traditionally interpreted as a bird flying up toward the sky and unable to come down, suggesting negation or refusal. Over time it became the standard negation word in Chinese, used before verbs and adjectives to mean 'not'.
断 — thread 㡭 (silk bundle) + axe 斤
Originally written with 㡭 (entangled silk threads) on the left and 斤 (axe) on the right, depicting an axe cutting through bundled threads. From this concrete image of severing came the meanings 'to cut off,' 'to break,' and by extension 'to decide' or 'judge'—as in resolving a matter decisively.